Laundry Day
by Archaeologist
Summary: Young QuiGon Jinn has some issues with laundry. The sequel to Laundry Day is now up.
1. Laundry Day

**Laundry Day**  
**Summary:** Young Qui-Gon has some issues with laundry.  
**Genre:** Humor, rated G  
**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Qui-Gon Jinn, Dooku, Yoda or the Star Wars concept; Lucasfilm does. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No credits have changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

_Whack. Thud. Whack._

Scowling, grumbling, and thoroughly annoyed, the young teenager paced back and forth in the cramped space. It wasn't fair that he be there. It really wasn't. Disgusted with the turn of events, he glared at the sight before him. Blast it all.

Qui-Gon Jinn, Padawan Learner to the great Master Dooku, was surrounded by huge laundry tanks, big ugly things full of dirty socks and stained tunics and lots of sloshing water. The durasteel vats were making loud thumping sounds for no reason that he could figure out. With all that mechanical clatter and working machinery, it was almost too noisy to think. The droids scurrying about didn't help matters either.

_Whack. Thud. Whack_.

Besides, the humidity and odors of unwashed clothes and acrid soap was not pleasant. He looked down in disgust; his fingers were wrinkled and splattered with flakes of dried detergent. Trying to clean his hands on his dirty tunic, brushing at his sweat-soaked hair, he felt damp, grubby and unhappy.

It had not been a good day.

_Thud. Thud. Thud. Whack_.

Glaring at the injustice of it all, Qui-Gon kicked at the nearest tank and muttered, "I shouldn't be here." When the washer did not kick back, he just leaned against it and folded his arms about his chest in protest. "I should be at the Festival like everyone else."

But, instead, he was stuck in the bowels of the Temple, among the cleaning droids, doing laundry detail. Because his Master sent him down there. For punishment. Again.

_Thud. Gurgle. Whack._

It just wasn't fair.

It wasn't his fault that he liked to grub in the dirt, that he felt more at ease there in the gardens among the Living Force plants than did his overbearing ogre of a Master. Who didn't understand him... at all. Unifying Force indeed. Bah.

He couldn't help it if his leggings got torn and dirty. That was the price you pay for digging in the soil and helping things grow. His Master should know that. He should. But, instead, Qui-Gon had been sent to help the droids with the laundry.

_Thud. Thud. Gurgle. Whack_.

And who heard of using soap and water to clean clothes? Only the poor people on faroff planets with no access to the modern comforts of civilization, that's who. He shook his head in irritation. Sonics were the only way to get clothing truly clean. Everybody knew that. But, instead of latest conveniences, the Temple uses the tried-and-true old-fashioned approach. '_If good enough for a thousand generations it is, then good enough it is for you'_. Bah.

He glowered at the tanks and gave the one he had been leaning against a hearty kick.

_Thud. Gurgle. Gurgle. Whack_.

Qui-Gon frowned at the sound. That was odd. The tanks weren't supposed to gurgle but then they began to thump once more and he sunk back into annoyance.

If only he could finish the job quickly, he'd still be able to go to the Festival and have some well-deserved fun. Not stuck here. Alone. He butted his head against the tank and closed his eyes. If he could only meditate, maybe it would go faster.

_Gurgle. Gurgle. Thud._

But how could he with all this racket? At least he tried to help things along. That extra large box of detergent in the tanks should speed things up. If only he could shake the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe it was just hunger. If only...

_Gurgle. Gurgle. Whack. Gurgle._

What was that annoying sound? As he stood up and began to turn around, his danger sense flared. Oh, the bad feeling got much, much worse.

_Gurgle. Gurgle. Thud. Gurgle_.

And then he saw it - Oh, blast it. A great white wall of suds fermenting out of the tank. Towering over him, about to fall. Oh, no. Could he stop it? Could he push it back into the tank with his bare hands? Oh, Force, could he drown in bubbles? He was about to find out.

With a great roaring hiss, the foamy wave tumbled over him, blotting his vision in a sea of white. Wildly cartwheeling his arms about, he stumbled backward and hit the tank behind him with a loud whump. Brushing at the soap, flinging it this way and that, he managed to open a slight hole in the suds for some much needed air. Looking around, he realized that, luckily, the soapy mess only came up to his shoulders. That seething surge of bubbles wasn't going to kill him after all. He was saved.

He would have laughed in relief but then his eyes started to burn and he couldn't see for all the tears flooding him. Scrubbing at his eyes only made it worse. Frantically, he was able to blow away the remains of the suds from his mouth but his face and everything else was still covered in the runaway detergent. He was soaked in soap and dirty water. Yuck.

He started for the door, hoping to escape with his dignity intact when he started to skid. Blast, he had forgotten that soap was slick and incredibly slippery. His body began to buckle as his feet did a wild dance, trying to find some traction, slipping and jerking as he skated forwards, out of control.

He let out a screech as the wall came out and smacked him right on the nose. Pain exploded in his head and he went down into the bubbles, still gripping his now bloody and pain-filled snout. Sliding to a stop, he brushed away at the foam and tried to stand. He would not drown in bubbles, he would not.

But the soap had other ideas. As he put down one foot and pushed up, he slipped again and fell heavily into the wet mess. Waves of foam floated into the atmosphere and covered him, blotting out the light for a moment. He opened his mouth to yelp but...oh, that was not a good idea. He jerked upright and tried to spit out the bitter stuff that he had inhaled. When that didn't work, he scrabbled along with his streaming eyes shut and finally found a handhold. With a grip that would surely bend durasteel, he used the railing to get slowly to his knees and then his feet. His eyes tearing still with the pain of the he-was-sure-it-was-broken nose and the sharp sting of soap, he did not see the tall man and very short, very green Councilor standing in the doorway.

"Padawan, what is going on here?" roared his unhappy Master.

Blowing out the last of the suds from his mouth, Qui-Gon replied, "Master, I'm sobby bud I tink I brokd my node."

And then Master Yoda let out a very loud cackle, the first that the boy had ever heard from the revered Master. "Cleaned the clothes, he has, Master Dooku. Just as you instructed. The walls, he has also and the floors. Never cleaner have I seen them."

"Master Yoda, this is not funny. This place is a mess and so is my bleeding apprentice." Qui-Gon could hear the frown in his Master's voice even if he couldn't see him too well through all the bubbles.

Another Yoda snicker. "True, true. Take him to the Healers, you will."

"Come along, Qui-Gon. Let's get you cleaned up."

And as Qui-Gon reached for his Master and began to walk carefully away from the foamy disaster, he heard one final long cackle.

"Good job."

The end.


	2. Bubble Boy

**Bubble Boy - Sequel to Laundry Day**  
**Genre:** humor/angst  
**Summary:** Everyone at the Temple knows about Jinn's little run-in with the laundry. Could things get any worse?  
**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Qui-Gon Jinn, Tahl, or the Star Wars concept; Lucasfilm does. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No credits have changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

"Hey, there's Bubble Boy."

The derisive laughter followed, rippling across the food hall, swelling as Padawans and older initiates joined in. The gangling victim of such ridicule blushed a deep red, even as he locked stares with his black-haired tormentor.

Padawan Jaccar Ne'te chuckled at the response. The reaction of the crowd was classic and he had handled the proclamation with just the right touch of sound and sarcasm. The kid's bright color was an added bonus. As he turned back to his fellow pranksters, he smiled, knowing he was safe. His target, the young Qui-Gon Jinn, did not believe in revenge; it was not the Jedi way. Besides, Bubble Boy was a favorite of Yoda's and Jinny wouldn't be caught dead doing anything to embarrass the Councilor - well not deliberately anyway. He snorted one last time, and then started talking about his upcoming mission, the kid forgotten. All in a day's fun.

As the snickers morphed slowly back to the normal hum of youthful conversation, the target of the joke, young thirteen-year old Jinn still hesitated in the doorway, radiating misery and profound embarrassment. Deep down, all he wanted to do was turn around, and run as far and as fast as he could. But instead, he berated himself sharply, taking the abusive ridicule as his due; after all, it was his own blasted fault that the name had stuck. In a way, he deserved everything they threw at him - because it was true. He _was_ Bubble Boy, the stupid fool too clumsy to help with the laundry detail and not get hurt.

As he stood there, he watched the other children jostling each other, enjoying the companionship of friends, gesturing wildly with laughter and excitement. But he was alone. Outcast. And the evidence of his spectacularly-foolish experiment in washing clothes was right in front of his face, literally.

He fought the urge to touch his broken nose; it still ached, even after a week. The bruising had begun to edge from purple to yellows and greens but the nose would never be the same. Qui-Gon would wear that badge of idiocy until the day he died. Damn.

He hadn't meant to make a mess of everything. He hadn't meant to put too much detergent into the laundry tanks and have the bubbles overflow and his feet slip in the soapy water and break his nose. But, like it or not, that's what had happened and now he would have to put up with the remarks and the training droids painted like soap bubbles and the 'blub, blub' noises that everyone seemed to make around him.

Fighting the comments wouldn't work, ignoring them hadn't worked and he knew that he would just have to ride it out. Well, that was until some other poor unfortunate did something so spectacular that Jinn's embarrassing foray into the wonderful world of laundry detergent paled by comparison.

He grimaced. He knew that might take quite a while and, in the meantime, he was stuck.

Well, he was hungry and he was here - might as well eat. Dragging his feet, he made it over to the food line and, ignoring all the stares and the giggling whispers, he kept his head down and grabbed blindly at something from the server droid. When he realized his mistake, it was too late. Grimacing at the wobbling mound of green color and odd smell, he shrugged and made his way to a table in the far corner. Alone.

He was stirring the concoction, hoping to make it seem more appetizing when he realized that someone was calling his name and had been for quite some time.

"Qui-Gon, what are you doing in the corner? I've been looking for you everywhere." Tahl's exasperated voice softened when she saw his face. "Oh, that still seems bad. Does it hurt?"

She pointed one finger towards his swollen, misshapen blob of a nose but he just batted her hand away. "Tahl, not now." He looked down again at the unappetizing green mess and pushed it to one side. He wasn't _that_ hungry and, besides, the laughter at the other tables just made his stomach into knots anyway.

His eyes flicked uneasily toward the noise, as if to gird himself for battle, and then gazed down to the floor, avoiding Tahl's sympathetic eyes. There was nothing he could do to stop the gossip and the jeers and he needed to get used to it. But sullen and morose, he fairly radiated misery.

But she was not going to let him sink down into gloom. Folding her arms tightly across her chest in irritation, she snapped, "Qui-Gon Jinn. You have to ignore them."

He just shook his head in defeat. "I've tried but they don't seem to want to stop."

Glaring at him in irritation, disliking the fact that he seemed to want to take on all the troubles of the Galaxy and made them his own, she ground out, "Then do something about it." But when he said nothing else, just sat there, playing with his disintegrating food, her voice grew impatient.

"What are you always telling me? That your enemy isn't the person making you angry but the anger itself. So figure out a way to make the anger go away."

Still not looking at her, he sighed, "How am I supposed to do that?"

"Qui-Gon, if you'd stop being so defensive and embarrassed about it, you'd realize that the whole thing was pretty funny."

He frowned at that. Gritting his teeth in annoyance, he hissed, "It was not funny."

Tahl let out a quiet chuckle. Leaning forward to catch his eye, she put her hand over his and gave it a light squeeze. Smiling, she tried to get him to share the joke. "Yes, it was. It was fit for the holovids. A young Jedi Padawan slipping on soap and breaking his nose as he slid into the tanks. Pure slapstick. We'd both be laughing if it was on the vidfeed and you know it." She gripped his hand harder and jostled it a bit, cajoling the teen with warmth and humor. He could be incredibly stubborn sometimes, especially about something so trivial. "Come on. Runaway laundry, bubbles up to your eyeballs."

An unhappy glance flicking to the other Padawans and then, grimacing, he said, "You aren't the one they're calling Bubble Boy."

"We get called a lot worse on missions."

Qui-Gon growled back, "That's not the same and you know it."

She tapped his hand a little hard to get his attention. "No, it's a lot worse because, on the missions, they mean it." She smiled in his direction, "This is just silliness." But when he didn't take the bait, she started to get annoyed.

Abruptly, she pushed back at her chair and glared at him, hard. "Qui-Gon Jinn, get over this. It isn't the end of the universe as we know it. Besides Ne'te is teaching you a valuable lesson - that names have power over you, but only if you allow it. Turn the tables on him, Bubble Boy." Lowering her voice, she suggested, "If you don't want them to laugh at you, make them laugh with you. Besides, I have an idea."

As she pulled out the child's toy, he looked at her as though she were insane. "I can't do that, not here. They'll think I'm crazy."

"Maybe, but at least it will be your choice, not some mistake, not getting your nose broken skidding through laundry soap. I'll even help."

"You will?" When she nodded, he began to smile. "You realize that, after this, you may have your own reputation to defend."

"I look forward to it." She laughed and pulled out her own toy. "Now blow."

It was sometime later that Jaccer Ne'te noticed the sound in the food hall had started to rise. He and his friends were still lounging at their table, datapads scattered across the scarred surface, pretending to study. Huddled together, they had not paid attention to the children scampering about or the Jinn kid and his friend making odd movements in the corner. Besides, Jaccer was too busy talking about his latest foray off-planet. His friends listened avidly as he cupped his hand for a moment and then made a booming sound, throwing his arms wide and laughing. The rest of the boys groaned, jostling each other good-naturedly. Another of the group started to make his own sound-effect, snickering and making semi-rude gestures when Ne'te stopped him and stared first at the chaos in the room and then at Jinny. He couldn't believe what was going on.

Around the room, the initiates and even some of the Padawans were running, jumping and laughing as they tried to catch the huge bubbles floating in the air. The place was fairly filled with them, all sizes, colors of transparent rainbow hues and they seemed to dance, bobbing up and down with graceful movement. Children and older teens alike were having a marvelous time playing with soap.

And Jinn was in the thick of the bedlam, blowing bubbles as if his life depended upon it, his eyes alight with laughter. He had a bubble pipe in his hand, and, spying Ne'te watching him, he blew an especially large sphere and wafted it in Jaccer's direction. The boy grinned madly at the older Padawan. At Qui-Gon side, his friend Tahl was chuckling and using her hands to send the airy prizes aloft.

Ne'te just stared for a moment and then started to laugh. So Jinny had turned the rout into a game. Now when he called the kid Bubble Boy, people would remember the bubbles in the food hall and not the spectacular disaster in the laundry.

Catching Qui-Gon's eye, Jaccer nodded in acceptance and then reached up to play with the bubble floating overhead. So be it.

The kid had won after all.

The end.


End file.
